Candy Hearts
by princesswingnut
Summary: Chelsea, the Volturi who controls emotional bonds, comes to Forks. What bonds will she break, what bonds will she create? Who will end up together on Valentines Day? Couples musical chairs! Insanity such as Rosalie/Jacob, Alice/Emmett, and Jasper/Angela.
1. Chapter 1

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Valentine's Day is coming up! I know I'm already writing a fic, but this idea just wouldn't leave me alone, and this is the perfect time to write it. Readers of "West", I swear I'll keep up my updates—which means I'll only be working on this once I've done my chapter for "West". I promise I'll update this one at least twice a week.

So this one is about Chelsea, the Volturi girl who has the power to change emotional bondings--weaken them, break them, attach them to someone else. Doesn't that sound like fun to you guys? It sounded like fun to me. Those of you who are concerned about our beloved canon couples, don't worry--all she can do is separate and cause confusion, I know she can't permanently break any lifelong bond :). So yes. Ready set go.

(Ahem. It seems that I may have...accidentally deleted this story. Sorry for those of you who posted reviews . don't know what happened there. It's back up now, no harm done.)

---

Chaos.

That was her one-word instruction. Cause chaos. She knew the Volturi hated to do without her, but it was too perfect of an opportunity to pass up. After the twenty-seventh straight year of getting the Cullens' Christmas card in the mail, with a picture of all of them smiling like a sweater catalog, arms wrapped around each other—well, something had finally snapped. Maybe they couldn't declare war on the Cullens. They would never admit that, but they couldn't. But they could do their best to make sure their lives were really, really hard.

Chelsea walked into Forks, Washington, leaving heelmarks in the mud where she passed. She was looking it up and down, left and right, and she was not impressed. _So this is where I have to spend the next week, huh? _she thought to herself. She hated it. She was used to the bright acrylic glamour of Italy, the high, important beauty—she was not used to rain and sludge and slate-gray skies.

_It's only a week, _she reminded herself as she pulled her shoe out of a patch of mud. Reminding herself what she was here for, what she was meant to do. She wouldn't even be spending much time in Forks at all—there was one specific house out in the woods, a pretty white house with bay window and spiral stairs. That's where she was headed. _It's only a week. And it's going to be _fun.

---

"Saturday?" Emmett said blankly.

"Yes, Emmett, I was wondering if I should keep Saturday free," Rosalie said hopefully. "If we're…doing anything."

"On Saturday?" he repeated. "No, I don't think so. I don't have any plans."

"_Emmett!_" she yelled, smacking him on the arm, subtle hints totally falling through.

"_What?_" he yelled back, completely bewildered.

"Saturday is Valentine's Day, Emmett," Alice grinned from her corner, looking up from her flute and the screwdriver she apparently thought she could fix it with. "Of course. Jasper's taking me to Niagara Falls."

"Niagara Falls," Rosalie said accusingly, turning around to glare at Emmett. "Did you hear that? He's taking her to _Niagara Falls!_"

"Oh my God!" Emmett yelled. "I would have _remembered, _that's like five days away! I would have figured it out!"

"Shut up," Rosalie said, swatting his hands away. "Don't touch me."

Alice smiled and went back to her flute, listening to them bickering loudly in the background. Rosalie and Emmett were the only couple she knew who were actually, literally happier when they were fighting, absolutely loved it. You could leave the room with them fighting and come back to find them making out on the couch five minutes later. They were smart, and snappy, and they had no one else to sharpen their wits against. They were having a blast.

She used to get worried when they fought like this, used to think they were going to break up or tear each other's heads off, whichever came first. These days she could really enjoy it—she could just sit back and watch.

Alice's flashes usually came unexpectedly—if she knew when she was going to see the future, she would, for example, have made sure to put her flute down first. Because when they came, they came as a complete visual—it was her premonitions saying excuse me, I need to use these eyes for a minute, hope you don't mind.

It came hard and fast, and the flute slipped out of her hand. The flash of silver caught Rosalie's eye as it fell to the ground, and she made it across the room in time to catch it. Flutes were fragile—it wasn't like they didn't have the money to replace it, but Alice was attached to this flute. She'd gotten it from Eleanor Lawrence back when she'd gone through her intense flutist phase, and it wasn't something she would drop on purpose.

"Alice," she said, as her sister's eyes began to clear again. "What is it? Did you see something?"

"I don't know," Alice said, grabbing her hand. "I saw _something—_I couldn't really tell."

"What did you see?" Emmett joined them, looking concerned. When Alice had a vision, the entire Cullen house shuddered to a halt. They'd learned a long time ago to shut up and listen.

"I don't know," Alice said again. "I only got flashes—there was this girl, but I didn't recognize her. Long brown hair—I couldn't see her face very well."

"What about her?" Rosalie asked.

"I'm not sure," Alice said, frustrated. She always hated it when it happened like this, when the visions didn't get specific because it was a person she didn't know, a place she hadn't been. When she didn't know what to look for. "I'll try to focus on it, I'm not sure what's happening."

Rosalie handed her the flute back, and she set it on the window seat beside her. She wasn't going to need that for a little bit. "One thing I did understand, though," she said. "I'm pretty sure that this girl is dangerous."

---

Chelsea knew exactly where she was headed first. After a quick reconnaissance of the Cullen house, (which was pretty, but not nearly as nice as their villa in Italy) she was headed off to find one person in particular. Edward Cullen.

She'd only seen him once. He'd come to Italy that one summer for the love of that human girl, or whatever the hell the story was with that, and he'd been with the Volturi for perhaps an hour. She hadn't been there that whole time, she'd had other things to do—but she'd walked into the receiving hall about half an hour into that confrontation, totally unaware of what was going on, and she'd seen him there. Bronze hair and big gold eyes.

Chelsea wasn't kidding herself. She didn't believe in love and first sight, and she knew that wasn't what this was. She wasn't in love with Edward Cullen. Still, she hadn't been able to get him out of her head. She knew she wasn't his type, and she knew he was already taken, technically, but good Lord that boy was attractive. And she _wanted _him.

She found him in the hills to the north of Forks, and shocker, he was with his girl. Chelsea didn't understand how he could even look twice at that human, but there was no denying the way he stared after her. Even when she looked like a total idiot, holding her ski poles the wrong way at the top of the smallest bunny hill.

"This is a terrible idea," she was saying, and her voice was crackling frozen with fear.

"Bella," Edward reassured, putting his hands on her shoulders. "You are going to love it. You're going to be a great skier. All you have to do is get down this first hill, and you'll see. You will love it."

"Edward," Bella said back. "I can't even handle how big my own feet are without tripping every five seconds. You've just added like two yards to them. This is not going to work."

Chelsea smirked to herself, hidden in the trees fifty feet back. Talk about an odd couple. She didn't deserve him. She closed her eyes and started to concentrate, finding their bond stretched like link chains between them. Well. Most people didn't have bonds like this, for most people it was just strings and threads. This one was going to take some work.

She rolled up her mental sleeves and started sawing away.

"What if the one ski gets tangled in the other ski?" Bella wanted to know. "What if I run into that tree down there?"

"You'll be fine," he reassured her. "You're not even going to get as far as that tree. I'm going to be at the bottom of the hill waiting for you, and I'll catch you once you get down there. I'll make sure that you're fine."

"You'll be down at the bottom," she repeated, tightening her grip on the ski poles.

"I'll be right there," he said.

She straightened up a little, looking down the slope. "I guess this hill isn't so bad," she said.

"No, it's not," he agreed. "It's just fine. Are you ready?"

"No," she said. And she pushed off carefully and started to ski down the hill.

And the last thread snapped.

Bella Swan knew herself pretty well. She knew what she was good at, she knew what she wasn't good at, and she knew pretty specifically the kind of thing she was likely to mess up. It turned out that her fear about getting the skis tangled had been a fairly accurate one.

She made it about halfway down the hill before she spotted a small hill of snow, a little bump right in front of her left ski. It was really nothing to worry about, but she panicked anyway, jerking her ski to the side—right in the way of the other ski. They got crossed and stuck instantly, tripping her up and over into a snowball somersault.

She landed at the bottom of the hill with one ski missing and snow down her shirt, in her hair, and she just sat there, stunned, trying to catch her breath. Edward walked calmly down the hill after her, and when he got to her she looked up at him, and he looked—very strange.

"Edward," she gasped. "You said you were going to be—where _were _you?"

"At the top of the hill," he said, and his voice was oddly cold. The snow down her shirt was nothing. She suddenly felt very, irrationally—very very afraid. "Listen, Bella, this was fun, but I've got to go. I have things to do."

"You have to—go?" she said, bewildered, trying to struggle upright. "Edward, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's _wrong,_" he said crossly. "I have to go, Bella. Could you please just leave me alone for once?"

He turned around and walked away, leaving her hurt and absolutely bewildered, standing in the snow with one ski. It occurred to her that she had no idea how she was going to get back to Forks.

Edward felt very strange. He felt irritable, and indifferent, and extremely annoyed with Bella. He couldn't seem to put his finger on why exactly he was here with her, what he'd seen that he'd wanted. He couldn't seem to justify spending so much time with her. It was possible that he hated her.

He walked into the woods and the first thing he saw was a girl. Leaning up against a spruce tree like it was the back wall of a club, perfect hair, white fur boots, inspecting her nails as he walked toward her. He looked at her and he felt something catch on fire.

"Hi," she said. "My name is Chelsea."


	2. Chapter 2

AUTHOR'S NOTE: A couple of people had questions about the timeline on this one. It's not anything specific, just pre-Breaking Dawn. Human Bella, no Renesmee, that kind of thing. Beyond that, it's basically some ambiguous Valentine's Day :).

---

"Carlisle," Edward said. "Esme. I'd like you to meet Chelsea."

Chelsea had her arm linked through his, and had her best sweet expression on. There was always a chance they would just go for this on their own. And if not…well. She had ways of changing their mind.

It wasn't looking good. Esme was frozen with her paintbrush halfway to the easel, paint dripping down the canvas as she gaped after this unexpected new girl in her house, on her son's arm. Carlisle had a similar expression—dumbfounded, slack-jawed surprise, shading to horror.

Esme found her voice first. "Edward," she said. "Dear. I thought you were taking Bella skiing."

"Bella?" he said blankly. "Oh, Bella. Yes, we skied. I just wanted to bring Chelsea home, I thought you'd want to meet her. I'm in love with her."

There was silence, and then the clatter of Esme dropping her brush. Sage-green paint splattered all over the white plush carpeting. "Edward," Carlisle said, now teetering closer to 'alarmed'. "Maybe we should talk about this."

"No," Edward said calmly. "I just love her."

"Wait a second," Carlisle said suddenly, sharply. "She looks familiar. Have we met before, Chelsea?"

_Damn, _she swore to herself. _Well, so much for that idea. _She reached out with her gift to the bond between Carlisle and Esme.

"Carlisle, what do you think you're doing?" Esme snapped, and beside her, she saw Edward's eyebrows start to go up. He'd never, as long as he'd known her, heard Esme snap at someone. Not even when he and Emmett had been wrestling that one time and broken her pre-Victorian coffee table. "She's obviously a nice girl, we don't need to question her motives." Chelsea had made sure to attach a few threads between her and Esme, as well—no harm in being loved by absolutely everybody.

"Esme, you always do that," Carlisle said irritably. "Would you mind _not _undermining me in front of Edward? You always _do _that!"

"You're going to pick a fight in front of Edward's new girlfriend?" she said, throwing her hands up. "Really, Carlisle? Perfect."

"I'm not picking a fight," Carlisle insisted. "You're being too sensitive. I never said I wanted to fight, I'm trying to be the _reasonable _one here—"

"Maybe we should get out of here," Edward said quietly, leading Chelsea toward the door. He'd never seen Carlisle and Edward fight, but he had instincts same as anyone. He knew to get out.

Chelsea slipped her hand into his, loving the feel of it, the freedom to pull him in as close as she wanted. This was working out great for her. With the parents and the girlfriend out of the way, now all she had left was—

"Hey, Edward," came a voice from the stairs. "Who the hell is this?"

"Classy, Rosalie," Edward said as they turned and saw her descending the staircase like it was a runway, like she might have to stop for pictures at any moment. "Really classy."

All vampires were beautiful. That was just part of the package, you lost your humanity but you got to be really, really gorgeous. It was a good deal. It had to be admitted, though, that some were more beautiful than others. Chelsea hated Rosalie on sight. She had that extra edge, that extra notch of incredible, so beautiful when she'd been human that it had carried over in a major way.

Chelsea was going to have to find someone _really _good to match Rosalie up with. Maybe a fifteen-year-old double amputee. With measles.

"I'm sure," Rosalie said. "But seriously, did you pick her up on a corner or something, what the hell?"

"This is Chelsea," Edward said protectively. "She's my girlfriend."

"Oh _really?_" Rosalie suddenly seemed way more interested in what was going on. "What happened to Bella, she fall off a cliff?"

Chelsea had a feeling she was going to get really sick of that question.

"Hey, who is _this?_" came another voice almost as soon as she'd thought it, a piping soprano coming in from the hall, from a small, skinny girl with a lot of concern and anger. "Where's Bella? Edward, you didn't _leave _Bella, did you?"

"Maybe we'd better get _everyone _in her at once and explain it," Edward said, exasperated. He was newly in love, or at least in deep infatuation—she couldn't quite fake love, she'd never gotten the hang of it—and he could not for the life of him understand why everyone had a problem with sweet, pretty Chelsea. "Should I just make a shirt and walk around in it for awhile, something that says _this is my new girlfriend, and Bella is out of the picture, thank you very much?_"

"Wait—what is he saying about Bella?" Emmett, bemused, just wandering into the conversation.

"Well, I think she's cute," Rosalie said suddenly. Chelsea had been spending the last few seconds attaching Rosalie to her as tightly as she could—she'd get to everyone sooner or later, she'd make herself the absolute _center _of this family, but she could only do one at a time. Rosalie seemed like a good person to get on her side—she was the loudest. "And I think it's none of our business. Edward can do what he wants."

"We don't even _know _this girl," Alice said, looking at her family like they were crazy. Crazier than usual. "Who is she—who _are _you?"

"My name is Chelsea," she said, batting her eyes. This part would be tricky, until she managed to get Alice bonded in a more helpful way. She was already hacking furiously at one strong bond the girl had, but she seemed to be rather attached to the Jasper guy. This one might be the kind that grew back quickly—but in the meantime, Chelsea needed to get her away from this Jasper and attached to someone else. Orders were orders. "I'm Edward's girlfriend."

"Stop _saying _that," Alice said, her eyes snapping sparks. "This is crazy! Emmett, help me out here!"

"Alice," Emmett said in a strange voice. "Do you know that you look really good today?"

She turned on him, halfway to losing her mind, this was all going _so _strangely. "What do you mean I—" she said, then stopped as it hit her too. Ran into her veins. "Well. I guess you look good too." Pause. "You look _really _good."

"Emmett!" Rosalie yelled. "What do you think you're _doing?_"

Emmett looked up at Rosalie, but only for a few seconds, and then he was back to Alice, putting his hands around her waist—which looked entirely ridiculous, his baseball-glove hands and her toothpick waist. He looked like he might break her. "Just talking to Alice," he said, irritation in his voice. "I like Alice."

"You like _me!_" Rosalie snarled, grabbing him by the shoulder and spinning him to her.

"Hey, would you mind leaving us _alone_?" Alice said. "He doesn't want to _be _with you, obviously, you might as well get out of the _way!_"

Chelsea stood back and watched as the Cullen family—the perfect, loving, moral Cullen family—dissolved into absolute chaos.

---

It was six o'clock at night by the time Bella made it back to Forks.

She didn't do it by herself. After an hour of standing around, waiting for Edward to come back and save her, she finally had to conclude that he wasn't coming. She started walking.

This was difficult, because she was wearing ski boots. She'd left the skis behind—Edward would come back for them later, once he got out of whatever weird mood she was in. She didn't want to think about that—it made her feel chilled and frightened, it made her very upset. Because what if he'd meant it. And what if he'd left her.

She couldn't think about that, because if she did, she almost didn't want to go home at all. It was hard enough clunking through the snow in her plastic ski boots—she needed some serious motivation.

She had made it about five minutes into the forest before she got saved by the other man in her life. The first sign was the howl far in the woods, and she should have known then that he was coming for her. He knew her scent for miles. She was surprised, and not surprised, when Jacob walked out of the woods.

"Bella!" he sounded shocked, and worried, trying to imagine how she came to be out in here, and such a mess. "What are you _doing _out here? Are you okay?"

"Edward took me skiing," she said numbly.

"Well, where is he?" Jacob said, looking around for Edward—he didn't like the guy but he expected him to be here for her, he was supposed to keep her safe. "Bella? Where is he?"

Jacob was looking at her with those dark-chocolate eyes, so worried about her, just wanting to know what was happening but suddenly, she couldn't tell him. She couldn't get the words past her throat at all, there seemed to be some sort of block there. And something in her eyes. A sob jumped out of her throat, surprising her, but Jacob got there instantly so she could collapse against him, wrap her arms around his neck, and cry.


	3. Chapter 3

Jacob kicked down the door of the Cullen house, bursting in like he was storming a castle. He'd always wanted to do this. He'd never had a good enough excuse for it ever before, and possibly he didn't have such a good excuse now, but he had an opportunity and he was taking it. They had enough money to pay for a new door.

"Edward Cullen!" he yelled, towing Bella gently behind him. "Edward Cullen, where are you? You need to come talk to me _now, _you filthy bloodsucking leech! Do you hear me?"

"It's not like you're possible to ignore." Edward had appeared quietly at the end of the hall, arms folded, leaning on the hall doorframe. Looking utterly bored, and a bit put out. "Is there a reason you're smashing our property to bits, Black?"

Jacob pulled Bella up beside him, and she looked afraid. Afraid at the look on Edward's face, afraid because he didn't immediately run up to her and say, oh, Bella, I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking, I can explain. No, he just stood back and watched her dispassionately, like he didn't care whether she was here or not. That had always been her worst fear—that he wouldn't care. Not even that he would hate her, that he just wouldn't care.

"You _left _Bella fifteen miles out from town, in _freezing _weather," Jacob snarled. "You _left _her there. I want an explanation."

"I am sorry about that," he said, sounding a little puzzled. "I forgot she wouldn't have a way to get home."

"You forgot," Bella repeated quietly, sounding very much like a person on the verge of something. Homicide. Mental breakdown.

"You _forgot,_" Jacob echoed savagely. "So much for eternal love, huh, Cullen?"

Edward looked over at Bella, and his eyes were the coldest she'd ever seen them. She never would have thought they could look cold, not with the warm gold color of them, but now they suddenly the color reminded her more of falcon eyes than butterscotch. A calm surveying, careless predatory intent. She wanted to run to him, to beat on his chest and scream at him, to get some kind of reaction. She did not want him to keep looking at her the way he was looking at her.

"I never promised it was _eternal,_" Edward started, but Bella cut him off.

"Yes you did," she said quietly.

"Oh," he said, nonplussed. "Well, then I apologize, because obviously that wasn't correct."

"I don't understand how you could just stop loving me," she said. If he wanted to break up with her, fine, she would understand that. But there was something very strange about this, and she couldn't make herself let it go. She didn't _buy_ it.

A girl Bella didn't recognize walked up behind Edward and put her arm around his waist, rested her chin on his shoulder. She looked perfectly comfortable putting her hands all over him, and she was very depressingly pretty. Bella took in the perfect oval shape of her eyes, her long loose curls like dark chocolate. Normally she wasn't catty, not the kind of girl who hated another girl just for her beauty—but normally those beautiful girls weren't lounging all over the love of her life.

"Bella, right?" purred the new girl, and Edward reached up and took her hand. "Hi. I'm Chelsea—Edward's new girlfriend. He won't be needing you around anymore."

"No, no, no," Jacob said, stepping forward. "You are not going to do this, Cullen. You are _not _going to drop her like this."

Chelsea looked at him with distaste, but nether of them moved at all, not terribly intimidated by Jacob even at the height of his righteous anger. Edward knew that Bella would never let Jacob hurt him—and Chelsea. Chelsea knew that she could stop him.

"Is that Jacob Black?" Rosalie wandered in from the side door, looking interestedly around the entryway. "I _thought _I smelled him."

"No werewolf jokes now, please," Jacob snarled, not looking at her. "We're a little busy, Rosalie."

"Oh, I wasn't going to say anything," Rosalie said breezily, still moving toward him. "I _certainly _don't have a problem with you being here."

Jacob was looking at her _now, _staring at her with a sort of startled look. It was just a little unexpected—for Rosalie. She wasn't supposed to say things like that. "You _don't _have a problem with it?" he said uncertainly, as if he wasn't sure he'd heard her right. "Aren't you going to—throw me out of your house, or something?"

"Oh, God, no," Rosalie said, almost unbearably sexy as she walked slowly toward him. Rosalie _had _that in her, she could turn it on when she wanted to, and sometimes she could be magnetic, impossible, irresistible. The thing that was confusing was why she was turning it on Jacob. "It looks like your collar is twisted, dear. Let me fix that for you."

And before anyone could stop her, she had her hands on Jacob, sliding them down his collar and collarbone. He looked extremely alarmed, but also floored enough that he didn't immediately push her away.

Bella did it for him. "Rosalie!" she said, trying to pull the girl away but not having much success. Rosalie was very strong. "What are you _doing?_"

"What's wrong, Bella, jealous?" Rosalie, on the other hand, really didn't have a problem with catty. "You _had _your chance. You've had him running after you for years, but you'll never love him back. You just want him to keep paying attention to you."

"That's not true!" Bella said, stung.

"Rosalie," Jacob said, catching her wrists. "What are you _doing?_"

"Just relax, Jacob," she said. Her hands weren't on his collar anymore.

"Is this some kind of _joke?_" he demanded. "Are you on _drugs_?"

"Jacob, did anyone ever tell you how incredibly sexy you are?" she said, and with a perfectly straight face.

_Well, it's not a double amputee with measles, _Edward heard from Chelsea's mind, _but at least he's fifteen! Have fun with _that, _Rosalie Hale. _She sounded smug, and on the verge of laughing out loud—and it wasn't the first weird thought he'd heard from her in the last few hours. Occasionally he even stopped to wonder who this girl was, what she was doing here—but that always passed quickly enough. She was here. He loved her. That was far and away more than enough. 

_This one, I think, _she was musing to herself, _ought to be one-way. He won't love her. Add to the confusion. _

Edward took her shoulders and turned Chelsea toward him, looking her in her huge pretty eyes. Red eyes. There was something about red eyes that was ringing a bell, warning him about something. About her. "Tell me what you're thinking," he said, by which he meant _explain to me why you're thinking it. _There was something going on here, but he couldn't for the life of him put his finger on it.

"I was thinking about you," she said sweetly, turning and taking both his hands.

"Liar," he said, with a smile, as if he thought it was cute that she was standing here lying through her teeth.

She frowned for a few seconds, like she'd just remembered something. "Of course," she said, with the slightest tinge of unhappiness in her voice. "You know exactly what I'm thinking. So you know I love you."

"Oh my God!" Jacob yelled behind them. "People usually _ask _before they do that, Rosalie! What is _wrong _with you?"

"Why does there have to be something wrong with me?" she pouted. "I would think you'd _want _to someone to pay attention to you for once. I thought you'd appreciate a real woman."

"That's it," Bella said firmly, grabbing Jacob's arm. "We're going. There is something _wrong _with this house, and until we figure out what it is—we're leaving." She started to drag Jacob out the door, and then stopped. And turned back and looked Chelsea straight in the eyes.

"I don't know what's going on here," she said, and there was actually some grit showing up in her voice. Someone had just taken the thing that she loved, and until she knew why she was _not _going to stand for it. "I don't know what's happening, but I _know _it's your fault. I don't know who you are, but you've done something. And I'm going to find out what."

She stalked out the door and slammed it closed, and it swung slowly back open behind her, hanging crazily on the frame, still broken from Jacob's attack. The sound of it swinging on its hinges sliced through the quiet of everyone watching her leave.

"Jeez," Rosalie said. "What's wrong with _her?_"


	4. Chapter 4

Six down, Chelsea thought to herself. One to go.

Edward was in love with her, which was great, Carlisle and Esme were busy biting each others' heads off, and Rosalie was too intent on obsessing over Jacob Black that she couldn't care less about Emmett and Alice anymore—who had, incidentally, disappeared off somewhere, hadn't been seen in hours.

The only one who she hadn't managed to get to yet was Jasper. Jasper had also disappeared, but it wasn't like he had somewhere to go. He was obviously not around because he was trying to get _away _from something, because he had the sense to figure out that there was something going on here. That wasn't something that Chelsea wanted to encourage.

But she couldn't do anything about it if she couldn't find him. She supposed she could try to track him down or something, but tracking wasn't one of her skills. She always left that kind of thing to Dimitri, and anyway she was pretty sure if she went head to head with Jasper like that, she'd come out on the losing end.

If he stayed gone, he wasn't a problem. She was just making sure to keep an eye out for when he showed up again, because he couldn't stay gone forever. His family was all here, his mate was here, and he _was _going to be back to try to help them. And when he did, Chelsea would be waiting here to snag him.

In the meantime, she had things to do.

"But _why _do you have to go?" Edward asked, still not letting go of her hand.

"I have to make a phone call," she told him for the third time—careful to keep her thoughts on that and not get specific. She _did _have to make a phone call.

"But why can't I come with you?" he wanted to know. Induced love, she had learned over the years, was almost always clingy love. She didn't mind so much—she liked to be needed. It was only at moments like this that it really got to be a problem.

"I'll be right back," she reassured him. "I'll be gone less than an hour, I swear."

She tried to pull away but he was still clinging, not letting go of her yet. "You promise?"

Of course she wouldn't be gone more than an hour. Her ability depended a lot on proximity—it definitely worked best if she stuck right next to the person she was trying to influence. Leave them long enough and her control would start to weaken, then thin out, then break. She would definitely be back in less than an hour.

---

Chelsea went out looking for someone to eat. She knew that the Cullens didn't approve of hunting within their boundaries, but right now they were a little busy to notice. As long as she didn't go on some kind of rampage, she was probably okay.

She flipped her phone open as she walked, keeping an eye out for anyone who looked particularly delicious. She was guessing this was what amounted to a Main Street in Forks, Washington, even thought it looked like nothing more than a deer trail to her, a few cute storefronts and a gas station, an Arby's, a bookstore. Absolutely stifling.

Anyway, she didn't want to be in the middle of town, she wanted to head toward the outskirts a little. She was attracting some attention here, what with being well-dressed and really, really gorgeous with red shoes and good hair. She really didn't want any of the humans to notice that she was in town. Humans tended to get in the middle of things and mess them up, send in their investigators and police forces, as if they could really do any good. It was always easiest to keep everything under their radar.

"Hi," she said as someone picked up on the other end of the phone. "Who is this?"

"This is Gianna," the voice said briskly, of course it was, it was always Gianna. In some ways, Chelsea supposed they did need a receptionist—there was a surprising amount of paperwork involved in being a feudal vampire lord—but Gianna was an irritating girl. Chelsea didn't like her. "How can I help you?"

"Gianna, this is Chelsea," she said. "I'm here in Forks, Washington—Aro said he wanted to hear what was going on. Said he wanted updates." Maybe she would hand the phone to Aro.

"I'd be happy to take a message for you," Gianna said briskly. No such luck.

"Right," Chelsea said dryly. "A message. Can you just tell him that it's going well, but that it's going to be more difficult than I thought to maintain the bonds. They have very strong connections in that family, I can feel them already starting to reattach themselves. Ask him how long he wants me to keep doing this, and could you please tell him to _call _me."

"I will certainly do that," Gianna said, and Chelsea wished she knew whether she'd actually written that down at all. She wished she had a line straight to Aro, Marcus, and Caius, some kind of red-phone hotline. That would be nice.

A girl walked out of the bookstore and turned onto the sidewalk in front of Chelsea, a thin girl with her hair in practical plaits and her arms full of books. Chelsea caught the scent of her and started walking a little faster almost without realizing it, getting close enough to see the words _Angela Weber _embroidered on her backpack. Chelsea didn't really like to know the names of the people she killed, but it wasn't going to stop her. She was hungry.

"Hi," she said brightly, walking up beside the girl. "Sorry. I'm a little lost. Can you tell me which way to the nearest Alberta Ferretti?"

The girl looked surprised to be spoken to, especially by a person she didn't know, had never seen before, but she seemed to be essentially a nice girl. Willing to help. "I'm sorry?" she said politely. "I don't think I know what that is."

"Oh, that's fine," Chelsea said, steering her carefully toward the nearest alleyway. "Is there a Gucci boutique? Nina Ricci?"

"What?" Angela said, looking more and more confused, and extremely confused when suddenly Chelsea put a hand on her shoulder and pushed, sending them both tumbling into the alley. There were still other people on the street, walking past, driving past, so she would have to keep this semi-subtle. Minimal screaming.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Chelsea said, playing flustered while still managing to block Angela from the alley mouth. "Oh, I don't know what happened, I must have tripped! I'm so sorry."

"It's fine," Angela said, unnerved, picking up the few books that had been knocked out of her arms. "I guess I'll just—go, then. I hope you find what you're looking for." She walked quickly toward the street, but Chelsea didn't move. "Excuse me."

Chelsea didn't move. "I lied," she said. "I did that on purpose."

Angela's eyes got very wide and her pupils dilated out, and she froze.

People always reacted to danger with fight or flight, Chelsea was used to both reactions and all variations of them—what was interesting to her was the moment when her victims realized that neither method would work. When the fight people realized that she could throw them fifty feet without trying. When the flight people realized that there was nowhere to run.

Chelsea didn't even see Jasper when he showed up. She didn't see him and she didn't hear him, she only knew he was there when he appeared suddenly between her and Angela. She'd never seen anyone move like that, and it didn't even have a lot to do with speed. It was just the way he could make himself invisible, to put himself completely out of your notice until suddenly you looked up and he was just _there._

"What do you think you're doing, Chelsea?" he said evenly, and as he wrapped a hand around Angela's wrist she gave a little squeak. She probably hadn't been expecting the temperature of his skin—or honestly, expecting to see him at all. Her life was getting very weird, very very fast. For now, she was probably glad just to have him here standing here between her and Chelsea.

"What do you think I'm doing?" Chelsea said, crossing her arms. She was starting to feel an abrupt sense of fear seeping into her, and she knew exactly what that was. She'd been warned about Jasper, how he could screw with your head, but just because she knew why she was feeling it didn't mean she could make it stop. She'd just have to start doing a little work of her own.

She honed in on everything that was stretching out from him, the connections in threads and rope-thick tethers. She went to work on them at once, slicing and weaving like a mad loomworker, destroying everything that had been and laying down new tracks with a fearful frantic sense that she knew was coming from Jasper. But he wouldn't beat her. Nobody could beat her, nobody ever had. Not ever.

"I'm not doing anything," she said once she was done, feeling breathless, bated triumphant as she waited to see. Waiting for what she had done and how she had changed him. "This is all a big misunderstanding."

But Jasper was already turning to Angela, solicitous, worried, one hand gripping either side of her open jacket. "Are you okay?" he said. "Tell me you're all right."

"I'm—okay," she said, flustered by his sudden closeness, his unexplained concern. Jasper was something like a rockstar, might have been a rockstar if he'd been born in the right decade. Might have painted his fingernails black. He was rather a lot to handle when he got this close. "I'm all right. It's—Jasper, isn't it?"

"I'm sorry," he said, with a kind of smile that Chelsea had never seen on him before. Sunshine and bright blinding charm, a smile that he never used with Alice anymore because they were in love already. This was the smile for _I've just met you and I think you're beautiful. _"I've been rude—I'm Jasper Hale, yes. You're—Angela, right? I think we went to school together."

She looked stunned that he had even noticed her at all, then and now. Angela was the type who wore black-rimmed glasses and skipped out on the last ten minutes of lunch to do some research at the library; she was pretty okay with not being noticed. He still hadn't let go of her jacket. "I think we had—Physics together," she said, sounding like she was being very careful not to say anything stupid. "You were very good at Physics."

"So were you," he said. "Listen, do you want to go get some coffee? There's this great little coffeeshop just down the block called Philosophy, they're the ones with the—"

"The chess tables, yeah," she said, and now she was smiling too. "I'd, um—love to. Thanks."

They walked straight past Chelsea without giving her another look, and Chelsea smirked at their backs as they left the alleyway. She had an excellent smirk—it was all in the lips, the way that you pulled them to the side. She'd had a lot of practice.

"Well that's that," she said to herself, alone in the alleyway. "Chelsea seven, Cullens zero. Game, set, match."


	5. Chapter 5

WRITER'S NOTE: I'm all over the place right now xD please bear with my schizophrenia re. updates, I'm just going with whatever I feel like writing when I feel like writing it. There will still be updates from at least SOMETHING every day--just trying to get my muse back in line. For those of you still confused at when the heck I showed back up again, see "Axis" for details of my absence. Love you all, feedback is awesome! That is all.

--

Bella could tell who the text was from by the way that Jacob flushed and shut his phone too quickly--halfway between embarrassed for him and morbidly curious, and she _had _to ask. "Rosalie?"

"Uh," Jacob said, his hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck. "Yeah."

"What did she say?"

"Nothing," the answer came too quickly, and there was another blush of color immediately up the back of his neck. Bella had never seen Jacob _blush _before. Even back when he'd been really going for her, inappropriate comments and gestures right and left, he hadn't _blushed. _Always so sure of what he was doing, always one hundred percent behind his decisions even if they weren't the smartest. Maybe that was the problem, though--when you were six foot two and could be easily mistaken for a pro wrestler if you just grew out your hair a little more and adopted a culturally offensive moniker like Blood Eagle, you weren't really _used _to being pushed around.

Rosalie was a little much to deal with, though, for a teenage boy, and definitely not used to taking the backseat. She clearly wanted Jacob, for whatever reason--he'd read her texts out loud to him at first, with an air of puzzled amusement, before getting one that had made his mouth drop open and create the first recorded moment of Jacob Black Blush in recorded history. At the time, she'd teased him and claimed that she wanted a picture of it, but it seemed now that there would be more than enough opportunities for that.

"This is insane," she declared, not for the first time--statement of the obvious but nonetheless true, as if pointing out that in the last two and a half minutes or so of thinking about it, it had failed to become less insane.

"_Agreed_," Jacob said fervently, putting his phone back in his pocket and his eyes back on the road in front of them as Bella drove. "So just so we're on the same page--we're going to go ahead and rule _out _that Edward might have spontaneously out of love with you, and Rosalie might have spontaneously fallen in love with me? Not the magic of spring or anything?"

"Definitely not the magic of spring," she confirmed. "It's that girl--she's doing this, I just don't know _how."_

"Excellent hypothesis," Jacob said solemnly. "...Now what do we do about it?"

"...I don't know," she responded just as firmly after a moment. "Clearly we need help here, but uh--calling the police is out. Can't tell my dad. Usually I would tell Edward or Carlisle, but--"

"We could tell Sam? The Council? Someone in La Push might know what to do."

"'Hi, werewolves'," Bella said, mimicking how the conversation might go. "'Remember me? The vampire's girlfriend? Right, yeah, well we seem to kind of be having _relationship _problems over in Forks. Any chance you want to step in?"

"Well, what does that leave us?" Jacob said, throwing up his hands in frustration. "Dear Abbey and Oprah?"

"_Yes, _Jacob, perhaps we should send it in to Seventeen magazine," she said--practically yelling. It wasn't really him that she was angry at, but having one's boyfriend supernaturally snatched was bound to build up a little stress.

"Maybe we _should_," he snapped back, slumping down in his seat again. "I can just see it in next month's issue. 'What To Do When That Cute Undead Carnivore Won't Return Your Calls."

---

"You've read Faulkner?" Angela's eyes could be described accurately and with no irony whatsoever, for a moment, to actually be shining. Reflecting her mild adolescent wonder from behind the lenses of her glasses.

"I _met _Faulkner," Jasper said, smiling. His coffee was still untouched--the whipped cream melted into the hot surface.

The adoration disappeared for a moment to give way to a small frown, her forehead creasing wrinkles. "...What?"

"...Joking," Jasper said quickly, his expression betraying nothing but that. He'd forgotten how very _difficult _it was to date human girls. Still, at least this one looked cute in a scarf.

---

"But WHY?"

"Because it's _wrong, _Chelsea." Edward was being remarkably patient--more than he realized, considering that his response to vampires in the past who'd tried to feed from the town he lived in had been a swift right to the jaw. Love, he supposed, made you a little bit blind.

"It's what we _do, Edward._" There was an edge to her voice now that belied the eyelash-batting sweetness she'd been pretending so far. He'd been charming, solicitous, more than willing to take her shoe shopping--everything that a magically bound boyfriend should be. With the one exception of him objecting to her getting a bite to eat. "We're animals."

"We don't have to be," he said firmly, his hands still wrapped around her wrists as if he suspected she might go after that freshman after all if he let go--and for fairly good reason, he could still hear her thoughts to that effect. "It's just something you're going to have to get used to, if you want to be with me."

She stared up at him--he was incredibly good-looking, which helped, but that didn't stop him from being head-smashed-repeatedly-into-wall irritating sometimes. "...What about a hobo? No one will miss a hobo."

"_Chelsea."_

"Fine!" It wasn't so much giving up as it was deciding that she'd simply have to be sneakier about it in the future--which thoughts she was careful to try to keep out of her head. "But you'd better buy me a _lot _of shoes."

---

"YOU'VE ALWAYS LOVED THAT PIANO MORE THAN YOU'VE LOVED ME."

"WELL MAYBE IF YOU WERE A PRICELESS STEINWAY, I WOULD LOVE YOU MORE, NOW WOULDN'T I?"

Rosalie had been listening to her parents escalate in volume and ridiculousness for over an hour now, and it was starting to get to the point where Joan Jett couldn't drown them out anymore. She huffed--pulled her headphones out of her ear, and walked directly _through _where Carlisle and Esme were standing on either ends of the hallway, screaming at each other, hoping to break up their concentration the way you could with static waves.

"Carlisle!" she announced, after she'd gotten to the other side of them with still no real effect. "Esme! I'm GOING OUT."

"Oh, are you?" Esme's voice was suddenly perfectly calm as she turned to her adoptive daughter, and the change was jarring. As if the insanity was only very localized and directed solely at her husband.

"Where are you going?" A similar shift from Carlisle, now looking at her with interest and mild concern.

"Jacob Black." It was an immediate and easy answer--she'd hardly thought of much else for the last few hours, and he wasn't responding to her texts anymore. Even Joan Jett was starting to sound like she was singing about him. "I want to go see him."

"Dear, are you sure that's wise--"

"Esme! Why do you have to constantly interfere? As if no one could _possibly _have a relationship without you matchmaking first?"

"I didn't _say _that at all--I was just _saying, _that with the _state _of things--"

"Oh, and what's the state of things?"

Rosalie sighed--put her headphones back in, and walked out the door.


End file.
